SECOND CITY SOIL

Nov 15 Why Chicago? Come Discover!

Why Second City Soil? Why does one of the most vibrant cities in the world need a website about its wine community? To the rest of the world, Chicago wine has played 3rd fiddle to Chicago's exploding craft beer and emerging cocktail bar scene. Long looked at as a flyover between the New York and San Francisco wine markets, the city of Chicago is recognized as one of the world's top dining destinations, but the word wine rarely appears in any of those accolades.

Chicago is a tough city. Its residents are intelligent and savvy. They are humble and generous. Chicagoans know the value of a dollar and can be wary of concepts and ideas that are not homegrown. Chicago can be bitter cold, but some of the warmest people on earth call the Second City home.

Chicago is a wine town, the world just doesn't know it yet. We may not have local vineyards or wineries, but we make up for it with our community, our people.

And we are a city of some of the most intelligent, badass wine women on earth (Alpana, Rachael, Rachel, both Jill's, Elizabeth Mendez, Belinda Chang, Hannah Grossman, Jillian Riley and many more up and comers).

Yet in the city that gave birth to the world's first wine chef, Charlie Trotter, every day our wine community is fighting to become relevant and recognized for being one of the most interesting cities for wine in America.

With Second City Soil, I hope to highlight the personalities, the producers, the restaurants and the wines that are making Chicago one of the most important wine cities in America. To bring together a community that has struggled to find a uniting voice to champion its message and to shout its praises from the highest mountains.

My dream is to show the world that there is a reason why Chicago is the city that winemakers love to visit, and where producers need to place their wines, not only because of our world-class culinary scene, but because of our world-class community.

Chicago is on the brink of being lauded for its fantastic accomplishments in the world of wine and my goal with Second City Soil is to push it over that edge.

Fortunately we are, if nothing else, a patient city; just waiting for our moment in the spotlight. Hell, we waited over a century for a World Series - so we will be here, ready to pop some corks when the world discovers what the Second City Soil is all about.